The theme of this month has definitely been flexibility. Nothing—and I do mean nothing—has ever quite gone the way we thought it would. Tony, our ministry host at Zion’s Gate, likes to tell us that there’s such a thing as “Honduran time”, which basically means that even if your pastor is supposed to show up for la clase de ingles at 11:00 am, he might not show up until three pm, if at all. With that said, we’re definitely learning that we’re on God’s timetable and not our own. Yesterday was a perfect example.
Our ministry in Honduras was originally supposed to be going with Tony to Sector F of Los Pinos (L.P.), a particularly dangerous part of Tegucigalpa. To be honest, my GI Jane side kicked in a little bit at the thought of building relationships with rough-and-tumble street kids, druggies and their dealers. I felt like our team was—to some degree—going rogue… or at least going where very, very few gringos have gone before. On our first day of ministry, however, we sat in Ministerio Resteracion for five hours planning English lessons. In fact, we were told, there wasn’t going to be any L.P. for us at all. Instead, our ministry had changed entirely to teaching English lessons to the community surrounding the church.
Let’s just say that—at least in my head—English lessons in a small church are not quite as exciting as a day in L.P. Just saying.
The LORD has been working in the English lessons, don’t misunderstand me. He is totally responsible for the relationships we’ve been building with the kids (and adults) we work with. The lessons are going well, Praise the LORD, and Tony has even begun to send some of the kids who live at the Zion’s Gate property with us to the church. Yesterday, he sent Luis with us, along with firm instructions not to let him go home to Sector F. Of course, this is all Luis talked about all day. He’d ask to go home; we’d say no. He’d ask why not; we’d say because Tony said no. And on and on and on.
Somewhere along the line, one of the team leaders got a call from Tony saying that Luis could go home to get new clothes for the week, but only if a few of us went with him. I jumped at the chance to go with the group, and ten minutes later we were hiking up steep hills and skidding down their opposite sides on the way to Luis’ home.
I kept expecting to feel afraid, but there was no sense of fear. Sector F is cut into the side of steep Honduran mountains. We cut across paths dug sideways into the dirt, jumping over dirty streams and trying our best not to fall. Luis’ house sat on top of an outcropping and we waited as he jimmied the lock on the tin fence. Inside, the pan on the woodburning stove was still warm. The house was cramped but clean. I stood outside in the yard and looked out over the city.
“How many people live here?” Mickey asked behind me.
I didn’t have a clue. “A few hundred thousand,” I guessed.
“I don’t know. There’s at least thirty thousand in this little bit alone,” he said.
I looked where he was pointing as he and Leanna continued to discuss numbers. It hit me that there were probably close to a million people in the city, each with their own family, own story, own God. From where I stood, in the middle of a crowded Central American barrio, I saw the city swing up on both sides of a deep valley. I remembered my time with the LORD that morning, how He’d led me to Nehemiah’s prayer for Jerusalem in Nehemiah 1.
And then we left.
I guess I’m writing about this—in a rather haphazard fashion too, I suppose—for a couple of reasons: 1. To give glory to God for letting us go into Sector F at all, which answered a huge prayer of mine. 2. Because I want to look back and remember that the LORD will interrupt your “plans” for the day to show you something small, but important. 3. To remember that that small, important thing is that the LORD sees each of our lives intimately. There’s no way I could begin to know every person in Tegucigalpa, but the LORD does. 4. To ask you to pray for this city. It’s in such need of so much light.
“O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing love with those who love Him and obey His commands, listen to my prayer! Look down and see me praying for your people Israel. I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned…Please remember what you told your servant Moses…if you return to me and obey my commands and live by them, then even if you are exiled to the ends of the earth, I will bring you back to the place I have chosen for my name to be honored.”
-Nehemiah 1:5-9
